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Friday, May 11, 2012

Book Spotlight + Review: Satisfying The Curse by Kelly Gendron

Blurb:

Juliana Pratt is cursed. Her father's
warned her many times she's destined to be a wanton just like her
adulteress mother. It's why he's kept her in all-girls schools,
hidden away from his elite society. However, when her father's
arrested for murder, he needs Juliana to come into the spotlight to
portray the doting daughter. Juliana agrees to the interviews and
talk shows, but before she goes on the two-week tour of lies about
her father, and with him behind bars and unable to stop her, she must
first take care of her starving curse.

And Juliana picks the perfect man to
get the job done. She secures him to a bed, but fails terribly at
finishing the task. Her thoroughly teased curse is left famished.
Later, Juliana discovers that the man she'd chosen to fulfill her
every fantasy is also the agent assigned to protect her for the next
two weeks. Her curse becomes relentless and will stop at nothing
until the delectable NESA Agent T. Ryker has satisfied its hunger.

Agent T. Ryker prides himself on his
discipline-that is, until his new assignment, Juliana Pratt, puts
that renowned discipline to the ultimate test. Once he discovers that
Juliana is the woman who drugged and handcuffed him to the bed in his
hotel room, he also finds out her true identity. Ryker agrees to
satisfy Juliana's ravenous curse, but he has his own reasons for
doing it, and it's not just to give Juliana's body what it craves...
for there is something else Agent T. Ryker wants from Juliana
Pratt...

Excerpt:

It was dark. He was groggy. His body
was heavy and exhausted. Something sweet, like the scent of lavender
and pumpkin pie, wafted to Ryker's nose. He couldn't help but inhale
deeply, taking in more of the arousing aroma. It almost soothed the
throbbing in his head. He tried to lift his hand to massage the
pulsating ache, but a strong bond stopped his wrists. He tried to
open his weighty lids. The light stung his eyes. It took a few
minutes for his eyes to adjust. Finally he saw her, a woman dressed
as if she were going to a masquerade ball. The little black feathers
didn't hide the bright green eyes peering back at him through the
mask. Her hair was dark with auburn highlights. It was unruly, long,
and tousled, but in a most alluring way. He scanned her tall, slender
body that was covered only by a thin, black, silky dress. It was like
a lingerie teaser on the cover of Playboy, something to lure you to
buy the magazine so you could see the nude centerfolds. Hmm. Green
eyes and dark hair? Well, this certainly is not little Miss Mindy, he
thought, imagining that the sexy little blue-eyed blonde was probably
sitting at the bar still waiting for him, thinking she'd been stood
up.

He tried to sit up, but all of his
extremities were pinned down. When he realized he couldn't move, he
looked to his feet, then quickly to his hands. They were bound by
leather straps, and a sheet was draped over the lower half of his
body. He wiggled, and damn it, his bare ass slid against the
mattress. What the hell is going on here? He was tied to a bed,
naked, and he had no idea how he got there.

The last thing he remembered was going
back to his hotel room for a shower. He was jetlagged from the plane
trip and exhausted from the fight. He remembered sitting down on the
chair just for a second to take a rest and... Wait! Had she drugged
him? Is that where his headache was coming from? The fogginess? The
water bottle. Ryker recalled only one in the fridge, so that he'd had
to take that one. It must have been meant for him. Son of a fucking
bitch!

"Don't be afraid." The
woman's voice was low and provocative, but reassuring.

Ryker scowled at her accusation.
"Afraid? I'm not afraid," he snapped. Pissed, he thought,
but not afraid.

"It's a natural reaction,"
she pointedly stated. "You're vulnerable right now, and
vulnerability comes from being unable to protect yourself." She
took a few steps toward him. "But do you know what you're trying
to protect yourself from?" She stopped beside the bed and tapped
her finger against the leather restraint on his wrist.

"You're afraid because you fear
what we all fear... pain. But I'm not going to hurt you."

Ryker suspiciously examined her, trying
to figure out who the hell she was. He chuckled. "You've got me
confused with the general population. It takes a lot more than some
chick tying me up to scare me, and as for pain..."Ryker sneered
at her, wishing he had some idea who his captor was.

"You were at the fight?" He
asked the question nonchalantly, not wanting to give away his
confusion. He tried to recall if he'd seen her there, but he decided
that she wasn't exactly the forgettable type. She was definitely not
a woman he'd pass by without a second glance, especially since he was
a sucker for long legs and auburn hair. The cat-green eyes were
enticing too.

"Yes. That's why I tied you up.
You're very strong."

"Listen, sweetheart-"

She raised a finger as if to hush him,
and Ryker-strangely enough-found himself hushed, wanting to hear what
she had to say. "I want to touch you," she said.

His cock disobediently thumped.

She dropped her finger and crossed her
arms over her breasts. "With your permission, of course. I have
no intentions of raping you, and-"

Really? Did she just say that? Ryker
snorted at the thought. "Raping me? You fucking drugged me and
tied me up!" He shook his wrists. "Doll, if you're worried
about violating my body without my damn permission, I think you're
already guilty." He was no longer enticed by the idea of her
touching him. His libido was silenced by the extreme anger coursing
through his body.

"Yes. As I said you are very
strong."

"Look, pumpkin..." Pumpkin?
Did I really just call her that? Fuck! It was all he could smell.
Ryker lifted his chest from the bed, getting as close to her as his
restraints would possibly allow. "If you wanted to get laid, all
you needed to do was ask," he seethed, speaking for his cock,
for at that moment, anger was filling the head connected to his neck.
And he wasn't a fan of being shackled to a hotel bed, no matter how
hot she was. She didn't even flinch or back away from his aggression,
and oddly enough, both of his heads were pleased about that. Ryker
preferred a woman with a little gumption, and this one clearly had
more than her fair share.

"I'm not entirely sure I want to
have sex with you, and as I was trying to explain to you, that is why
I needed to tie you up."

When the little feline admitted so
matter-of-factly that she wasn't sure she wanted to get laid, both of
his heads agreed that it came as a bit of a disappointment. Ryker
settled back on the bed, his body still fatigued from the fight and
whatever drug she'd spiked his water with. He inspected her. Was she
trying to tell him she tied him up for her own safety? He was sure
that she didn't really know him, because if she did, she would have
known that there was no need for that, his discipline was
indestructible. He had needs and urges just like everybody else, but
even he'd never take a woman without her consent-not to say that once
consent was established, the woman wouldn't find herself in a bad
way, crying and writhing beneath his relentless body. "If you
don't want to fuck, then what the hell do you want?"

She sighed. "As I said, I want to
touch you."

Ryker was leery, not sure how to
respond. What man wouldn't want this chick to touch him? Already, his
rod bellowed to let her do it, but his loss of power was berating
him, demanding that he regain control over the situation. He wasn't
at all comfortable in the submissive position, something he'd never
experienced before nor wanted to, and lying there like a shark
without its teeth, he knew why. He needed to regain control while
maintaining his strict discipline. That was what he prided himself
on. After all, he had to. His blood was contaminated.

"Tell you what..." he said,
nodding toward her dress. Cuffed or not, it was time for Ryker to
grab a hold of the reigns. "Why don't you take that dress off,
and we'll see how my body reacts to you," he said, drawing his
gaze back up to her jade eyes, "and then I'll let you know if
you may touch me."

She tilted her head considerately and
turned to the door, perhaps thinking of running. Ryker hoped she
wouldn't, because he didn't need to be left in that awkwardly
helpless position, still tied to the hotel room bed. Her head slowly
twisted back. She moved her hands to the bottom of the thin material
and lifted.

Ryker held his breath. Beneath that
teasing little dress, she wore a black lace push-up bra. A sneak peek
of the start of her blushing nipples filled his eyes, but they were
quickly drawn down to her flat stomach, where there was a small
tattoo with some type of Chinese symbol arced above her belly button.
He averted to her panties, which were also skimpy and black. Thump,
thump. His cock responded fiercely beneath the sheet, demanding that
Ryker allow her to touch him.

He glimpsed down at the lift in the
sheet between his legs, and she followed his eyes. She lifted her
chin, and a noticeable sly smile turned up her sweet, plump lips. "It
appears your body is reacting appropriately."

Ryker groaned. There's nothing
appropriate about getting turned on by a bitch who drugged me and
kidnapped me...

About the Author:

Kelly resides in a quiet suburb
somewhere between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY. Her backyard is
small but secluded. During the summer you'll find Kelly in her
sunroom. The winter months, she sits in her writing room. Her two
favorites places to go and write after she gets home from her other
job- representing a group of nursing facilities in the WNY area. The
weekends are when she really gets lost. She forgets about the dishes,
laundry and the family tends to ask her the same question twice. You
can usually find her peeking up from her laptop saying "what?"
as she tries to pull herself away from her story and come back to the
world going on around her.

Writing, what other way is there to
describe it- it's Kelly's conviction. After working in the human
health field profession for nearly two decades, Kelly's aware of how
deficient many people's daily lives are of true human connection.
Through her writing she strives to reconnect readers with those
all-too-rare feelings of unquenchable desire, heated passion and
splendid euphoria.

Kelly has been faithfully writing for
three years but did write her first book ten years ago. She put it
down to raise her son as a single mom and then picked it back up when
she and her son finally grew up. That's when she settled into her
adult life and started to seriously write again. She's dabbled with
paranormal stories, but recently she's been on a Romantic Suspense
kick. The recipe for the men in her stories: dark and mysterious,
strong and confident and, of course, besides magnificent bodies, and
shameless aptitudes, they must have a heart you want to rip out of
the pages (or your e-Reader) and take to bed with you at night.

This is one HOT book! Wow! The leading characters are Ana and the oh so mysterious Ryker. After a strangely intriguing confrontation, isn't it just his luck that she is his new assignment. Ryker better watch out for this woman, because she is feisty! The book mentions this "Curse" and I didn't find out what it was until at least halfway through the story. Ana is a very sheltered woman, and of course a lady that has been that way most of her life is ready to rip and let loose. Ana is no exception. Ryker, however, wants to keep as far away from her as possible, despite Ana's advances.

This is a great read. It's fast paced, I love the characters and the banter, wit, and sizzling sexual tension between them. You can't do wrong with a mysterious hero that tends to keep his walls up high. It made me want, no, made me NEED more of Ryker and learn about why he is the way he is. Ana could be the perfect woman to break down his defense, if he'd let her. Those two are so opposite, but are a perfect pair.

Satisfying the Curse will satisfy readers that enjoy a good suspenseful, hot read. I enjoyed this book! It kept me up a bit later than I should have stayed up, but when the engaging begins, I think you know how hard it is to put down a book. Great job, Ms. Gendron, for creating such a book that left me satisfied- and yet not satisfied, because I want more Kelly Gendron books! :)